My old school friend Ben Osher, who used to run art zine Beautiful Decay, has since transitioned his career path from publishing to food, now a BOH (Back of House) Chef at Nobu. Yesterday, we decided to create a grand home cooked meal. There’s Ben in his home kitchen, check the professional floormats!

Obviously Ben is white. The irony of this meal was a white guy cooked an all-out Korean meal for a Korean aka me! Step 1 always, get the rice going..

Step 2 was already done, get the short ribs in the pressure cooker. You’ll see soon.

Then we took an unexpected stroll to the community garden right around the corner on Hollywood/Curson. The city needs more of these. Open sesame..

Got to his plot. Use them scissors Ben!

His plot is primarily populated with peppers. The alpha pepper Habanero, yes!

Red Jalapeno. They turn this color when you let them go past green. You’d think they’re spicier, but actually they turn sweeter when red..

Ever wonder where the Chinese got inspiration for their lanterns? A tomato pops out of this..

Purple basil..

Back to the kitchen. Washing the freshly-picked produce..

To hold over our hungry tummies until the short ribs were ready, we made ‘been-dae-dok’, what most non-Koreans will call kim-chee pancakes..

Checking on the beef, looking fall-off-the-bone tender!

The rest is in our tummies! Thank you Ben Osher, magazines are dead anyway.